SBUX Starbucks Corporation

By Micah Maidenberg 

Starbucks Corp. is voluntarily recalling a coffee press it sold for more than two years after receiving reports about it breaking during use, causing cuts and puncture wounds.

The Seattle-based coffee chain is recalling about 263,200 of the presses in the U.S. and Canada, according to information from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Starbucks sold the Bodum presses online or in its stores between November 2016 and this past January.

Consumers use such presses to brew coffee, adding ground beans and hot water in a cylindrical pot and then pushing a screen down over the grounds using a plunger.

But a knob on the plunger on the presses Starbucks now is recalling has broken for some customers, causing injuries, according to the consumer products safety agency. Starbucks has received eight reports of the plunger knob breaking in the U.S. and one such report in Canada.

Starbucks sold the presses for about $20 each.

Starbucks will offer store credit for returns, implying a cost of about $5.3 million for the company. The coffee chain decided to recall the product out of an abundance of caution for its customers and employees, a Starbucks spokesman said.

Shares of Starbucks ticked lower on Wednesday, closing at $77.52.

Starbucks said it can't accept the presses in its stores and wants owners of the presses to call it or visit its website to receive instructions about how to return the product.

A spokeswoman for Bodum, which made the presses, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Write to Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 01, 2019 17:24 ET (21:24 GMT)

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